Saturday, 18 December 2010

After Masai Mick's midweek effort in raising the Group's annual total of Redwing above the 400 mark, the question we were all asking was "Can we take the total to 500 before the New Year?"

The question was rapidly confined to the waste bin after Friday's session:

AGH, having worked extensive shifts all week and being completely oblivious to his family's needs of assistance with the festive preparations, decided to team up with MJT for another early morning sortie to Stanford in the search for even more thrushes. Three hours later, having duly ringed one Song Thrush, four Blackbirds, thirteen Fieldfare and one hundred (yes - 100 !!) Redwing it was apparent that the Redwing target had been set too low.

With the Group's ring stocks now dwindling faster than the Council's grit supplies an urgent call to BTO sales was clearly needed in order to remedy the situation and I was promised that the BTO Elves would package and post my order without delay.

Saturday 18th December

With not a trainee in sight, the three of us met at the usual hour of 0600hrs and those of a superstitious mind will realise what was to come - a poor catch of a couple of Fieldfare, 3 Blackbirds and 15 Redwing quickly brought us back down to earth. However, as it was pointed out, not so very long ago we would have been pleased with 15 Redwing as an annual total. Cue to retire to The White Hart for refreshments in front of the log fire!